


the counter

by archaeologies



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: M/M, THERES SPOILERS BUT THEYRE PRETTY VAGUE??, but theyre super brief??, i think it should be ok !!, its just like a fic that follows from ep 60 to the end of 5ds, its just mostly like, lots of talking abt corpses because. kiryu is there, mentions of suicide and self harm, theres some imagery thats like maybe gross, to like handl !, uh canon typical violence, yusei has ptsd and is trans i don't make the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 19:50:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10838226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archaeologies/pseuds/archaeologies
Summary: Bruno doesn't know about any of that.





	the counter

**Author's Note:**

> so my landlord put a childsafe filter on our internet which blocked ao3 for about a month, and since we got that taken off this week i decided to work on fic instead of the 2500 word usage analysis essay i have due on monday. because i'm smart

 

_siphon off top layers, leave an etching in the dirt_  
 _tracing past the history to dig back to the hurt_  
 _fingers leave a trail on me, a map of what i've done_  
 _each hair that grows precisely shows a timeline and my sum_  

* * *

 

Yusei traces the shape of the Dragon’s tail over the Dragon’s head. His skin hums softly under his fingertips, like the old mark bubbles through his bones. He follows lines that were burnt into his blood: upwards, to a point, downwards, inverted point. Sometimes, he feels like he can still see it, engraved into his skin, a searing red sign of a searing red god. Now, when he looks down at his arm, he meets the unmoving, unwavering, constant gaze of one solitary eye, the outstretched, clamping jaws of a being older than time, a being more powerful than time, and his chest buzzes with fear, with responsibilities, with the burden of destiny.

He was meant to be the tail, he thinks. It felt safe. The Crimson Dragon needs a head, needs claws, needs arms and legs and wings, but the very end of a tail, the barbed tip - that’s something not entirely necessary, something that helps with balance, a little, but isn’t essential, something that can be substituted, something that isn’t vital. The mark felt right. The place felt right. Yusei could be the person who offered balance, who brought stability, but who wasn’t essential, who could be sacrificed, who the rest of the group could go without. Now, he’s the head. He’s the eyes and mouth and brain and teeth. He’s the one who has to lead, who has to fight, who has to face forwards.

There were freckles there, once, he remembers, bringing the mark closer to his face, finally letting his fingers cascade down the stark red that’s imprinted there, rather than the red he remembers. On nights when he couldn’t sleep, he used to draw lines between them, connect the dots, think of them as constellations, stardust sprayed across his skin. His throat tightens as he realises those freckles must have fallen in line with his marks - he won’t call them birthmarks, because he wasn’t born with either of them, wasn’t born exclusively to slot into this destiny, wasn’t born just to signal the return of something ancient. He closes his eyes. There’s a sick, dizzying panic in this moment of realisation, in this brief fear that the Dragon’s head was always meant to find its way to him, a fear he can’t word or explain, a fear of some predestined plan meaning everything he fought for, everything he struggled with, means nothing, a fear that the choices he’s had to make, and will have to make, mean nothing. A fear of an inescapable future that he doesn’t want to believe will come to pass, a fear of repeating the same mistakes over and over again, a fear of losing what little control he had over his existence to some deity, to some fated battle, to something written in stone before he was born.

His arm drops to his side, and he thinks of Kiryu. Is his mark still there? Bulging and blue, like a prominent vein, twisted, fit to burst through pale, glossy skin, cold skin, hollow, hanging off Kiryu’s frame, fitted around empty, black eyes. Yusei takes a steadying breath. Kiryu isn’t like that anymore, he promises himself. Kiryu isn’t a corpse anymore. He’s alive. He’s alive and his eyes aren’t sunk into his skull, and his skin isn’t carved with devotion to a Wicked God, and his heart isn’t beating stone filled with screams and sacrifices and sorrow. He’s alive and he’s free, Yusei nods, and he lets his gaze settle on his mark again. He’s free from gods and destinies and marks that scour into his skin and brand him with a purpose and a fight and a fate he has to see through to the end.

Yusei wonders, for a second, which Kiryu woke up. The one he defeated, who died in his arms, crying and regretful and Kiryu, so perfectly Kiryu, so entirely Kiryu that Yusei forgot for a moment that they’d ever fought, that he’d ever changed, that he’d ever become so consumed by a need to find his purpose, his place, that he’d pushed away everyone he loved in sake of starting a war he had no hope of finishing. Or is it the other Kiryu, the Kiryu he became, the Kiryu who wants Yusei dead, who wants himself dead, who hurts with every muscle, every ligament, every cell in his body, who loathes Yusei with every muscle and cell and ligament, who would die for revenge against him, who would die to escape the hell of hatred and anger and misery he’s been forced into by circumstances Yusei wasn’t good enough to prevent.

Jack says Carly doesn’t remember being a Dark Signer. She doesn’t remember dying. Yusei doesn’t like thinking about that for too long, because if Carly doesn’t remember it, then Kiryu can’t. Then Kiryu can’t have come back as someone who knows Yusei made amends. Kiryu can’t have come back as the Kiryu from before, but as someone broken by betrayal, someone who’s been abandoned, someone sad and suffering and agonisingly alone.

Bringing back the Dark Signers was meant to save them. Yusei’s lips tremble. He _can’t_ think about this for too long, about Kiryu for too long, because he can’t let himself consider that every attempt he’s ever made to save Kiryu, to protect Kiryu, has hurt him more than he could ever help. He can’t think about it for too long because if Kiryu came back to continue suffering, then that’s Yusei’s fault. Yusei did that to him. Yusei tried to save him and instead just forced him back to the hell he’d given his soul to escape.

So the first Kiryu must be the one that woke up. For both their sakes, Yusei hopes the first Kiryu is the one that woke up. Part of that is selfish, probably. He’s running away from the responsibility of hurting someone he loves. Yusei looks at that mark again, brazen against his skin.

There isn’t a lot he can run from anymore.

...

The first mark that Bruno sees is Crow’s.

It isn’t that any of them are making an effort to hide them - they just happened to appear on parts they tend to keep covered. Yusei’s thankful for that. He doesn’t know if he would want it exposed or not, but he doesn’t have to worry about that, since his shirt stops at his wrists and his gloves stop at his elbows. Bruno pulls himself away from Jack’s D-Wheel, and he rubs the bridge of his nose and smears it with oil and grease, runs the same hand through his matted hair, and says, “Oh! Oh, nice tattoo, Crow!”

Crouched at his side, hand outstretched, a wrench hanging limply in his grip, Crow follows Bruno’s gaze to his exposed arm. There’s a moment of confusion, and it passes between the two Signers in the workshop with Bruno. It’s followed by unspoken panic, on Yusei’s side at least, because what can he say in that situation? What can any of them say? How can they even begin to explain any of it to someone who barely remembers who he is?

“Does it mean something?” Bruno asks. He shrugs and points his chin towards Crow. “Your tattoo?”

That panic grips Yusei’s heart tighter and turns it to steel. Cold and metallic fear pumps through his veins, churning with the realisation that he doesn’t _want_ to explain any of this. He wants to keep Bruno out of whatever destiny is coming for them, he wants to keep Bruno safe and untouched by the path carved out for them, from the path carved into them. Gods and Ghosts and a road predetermined by the choices Yusei’s father made... Bruno shouldn’t be burdened by that. Yusei doesn’t want Bruno to be a part of any of that.

But he does want Bruno to be a part of his life, a part of the team that the Crimson Dragon brought together. Maybe, he thinks on a nervous inhale, maybe somewhere in the haze of working together, programming together, growing together, Bruno has come to stand for that normality, that peace, that Yusei was beginning to find and build in the city he’d worked so hard to save. Bruno, who laughs and jokes and bares markless forearms and doesn’t hear the cries of a burning god when he sleeps, and doesn’t let destiny weigh heavy on his chest, who has a voice that sounds like coming home and who smiles not just with his lips and mouth, not just with his eyes and face, but with his whole being in a moment that allows him to explode in that safety, that happiness, that he finds in the simplest of things, that he shares with Yusei, that makes Yusei feel safe, home, happy.

Telling Bruno about their marks, their battles, means that the one thing in Yusei’s life that has been left alone by fate is exposed to it. Maybe Yusei isn’t ready to do that. Maybe Yusei is protective of this information because of that. He chews on his cheeks.

When did he become so selfish?

Crow laughs. “You could say that, yeah,” he beams, and he drops the wrench into Bruno’s lap.

“Looks kind of like a face,” Bruno pouts. “Sorry. I can’t really tell what it’s meant to be.”

“It’s a sign,” Crow slaps Bruno on the shoulder a little too hard, and he yelps. Yusei feels his jaw tremble, and clenches his teeth tight. There’s pressure in his throat, but he’s too terrified of what Crow is about to say to swallow. “A sign of our bonds!”

Yusei laughs slightly, on an exhale, and Bruno looks up at him. There’s such tenderness in his gaze that Yusei immediately regrets being relieved that they’re lying to him - wait, not so much _lying_ as just... not being entirely truthful, Yusei supposes. Bruno’s eyes are so soft, so trusting, that Yusei hates whatever selfish part of him can’t let him know about everything that happened before, everything that is going to potentially play out again in the future. “Of course,” he chuckles, “with you guys, how could it be anything but your bonds?”

Crow nudges Bruno, and feigns anger as he cries, “Hey! What’s that meant to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing!” Bruno throws up his arms in surrender, but Crow grabs his shoulder, pulling him towards him, before he starts ruffling his hair.

“Can’t a bunch of guys celebrate their bonds with their friends anymore?” he continues, while Bruno flails in his grip. “What’s the world coming to? Do I really live in a day and age where I will be _mocked_ for treasuring this bond?”  And the two of them playfight for a little longer before the room is filled with their giggles, and Yusei thinks he hears an almost laugh echo in his own voice, but he isn’t sure, and Jack storms in and complains about the noise and demands everyone gets back to work before pushing a button on his D-Wheel and blowing a circuit dangerously close to Bruno and Crow’s faces, making the two laugh even louder.

Yusei works well into the night, long after Jack and Crow have gone to bed, and Bruno stays up with him. Yusei has no issue working through until the morning, but he knows they have plenty of time, and also feels like he’s keeping Bruno up, so when his movements start dragging and his eyelids burn, heavy, he starts packing up. Bruno looks exhausted. Yusei wants to make sure he gets rest, at least.

They’re putting the equipment they’d been using to work on a better suspension system away when Bruno says, “So you have one too, right?”

Yusei isn’t good with expressions. His face is stiff and mechanical and he can never make it convey what he wants it to - his voice is like that too, when he’s able to speak. He used to utilise that, back in Satellite, back in Team Satisfaction, back on the streets, back when he needed to be someone who others were afraid of, back when he could turn his fear of others against them. Now, it makes him seem harsh and stern, it makes him feel like he’s closed off from others, like he can’t reach out to his friends, like the people he love can’t believe he loves them because he can’t make his voice and his face make the sounds and movements that people associate with kindness, with gentleness, with love. Still, he feels his eyes widen in confusion, and tremble slightly under Bruno’s gaze.

He supposes that slight change must have been enough, because Bruno gestures to his arm. “A tattoo, like Crow. I was asking if you had one too.”

No words come out when Yusei opens his mouth.

“Because it’s your bond, right?” Bruno’s smiling, but his brows are furrowed, like he’s worried he’s done something wrong. Bruno worries about getting things wrong a lot. Yusei has never seen him make a mistake, however. “Or at least, I thought it was your bond he was talking about.”

“Yes,” Yusei’s voice catches, rusty and unused, in the back of his throat, and he coughs. Bruno seems a little startled by the speed at which Yusei had cut him off, but his face shifts to relief, and Yusei feels his lips curl into a smile he hopes is reassuring. He’s relieved too. He doesn’t want Bruno thinking he’s done something wrong. “Yes,” his voice runs smoothly now, “I have one.”

Bruno’s hand is warm against Yusei’s forearm, and he grips him lightly. Yusei feels his heart stutter in response to the sudden pressure, the sudden touch, and his pulse bubbles through the fabric of his shirt, his gloves. He’s certain Bruno must be able to feel the way his skin is thrumming now, that it must be vibrating against his palm like a trembling engine, but if he can, Bruno gives no indication of the fact. “I hope,” he brings himself closer to Yusei, and he feels Bruno’s words comb through his hair and brush against his face, “that you can show it to me, someday.”

Numbly, Yusei nods in response. Does he? Does he hope he can show Bruno that flaming face embedded in his flesh, in his soul, in his destiny? He feels like he’s shaking slightly as Bruno drops from holding his arm to brushing against his gloved hands. He thinks their fingers coil up against each others, at some point, but his brain is rushing too fast to focus on more than the thought of Bruno finding out, of Bruno knowing, of Bruno being involved in the Crimson Dragon’s plans.

He rests his head against Bruno’s shoulder, and Bruno’s free hand, the one that isn’t holding Yusei’s, plants itself softly on his waist. Yusei decides he’s going to protect this for as long as he can, protect Bruno for as long as he can, protect this moment where he doesn’t have to be a Signer, where he doesn’t have to be Doctor Fudo’s son, where he doesn’t have to carry the future of the city, the world, on his aching, screaming shoulders, for as long as he can. So he can’t show Bruno yet. He can’t tell Bruno yet. It’s a decision that keeps them both safe. It keeps Bruno from being hurt, and it creates a place where Yusei can stop hurting, only if for a second. Is that selfish? Is that who Yusei is now; a selfish, terrified boy who can’t face up to his past or his future, and so works to create a tiny portion of the present where he can feel like he’s allowed to live?

...

Bruno says, “Looking out at the city like this... It makes me wonder if there’s someone who misses me. Someone who’s looking for me, who wants me home.”

Yusei can’t make himself say that that person is him.

...

He’s not sure when the nightmares start, only that once they do, they don’t stop. He can’t conceptualise them as dreams, because they feel so real, because the pain and the fear and the breathlessness that pulls him out of them is real, because the Crimson Dragon spreads her mouth wide against the flesh of his right arm and screams until he digs his fingernails into the underside of his skin and rips into his lips as he clamps down on his own cries. He swallows. His throat is raw from yells he hasn’t made, and it stings, hot and dry. He pushes himself out of bed, arms shaking, barely able to sustain his weight. His lungs heave, fast, heavy; he’s been in enough fights to know how they feel, how they smell, how they taste, and right now his offbeat breaths and dusty, metallic mouth reverberate and resonate with memories of split lips and black eyes and bruised ribs and broken bones. He pushes back his fringe. It slides up his face, sticking with sweat and grease to the top of his head.

On nights when Zero Reverse happens, he can’t even make himself do that much. He can’t make himself move. He just lies there, choking and sobbing, rigid, frozen, watching light explode against his eyelids, listening to alarms blare in his ears, feeling the world shatter and seperate around him. Breathing is especially bad on those nights - his guilt is suffocating, and his throat fills with blood and spit and suffering, until he feels his spine shoot upwards and he can cough out thoughts of how many died, of how many lives were lost and ruined, until he can vomit up possibilities and pasts where it didn’t happen, where he didn’t - his dad didn’t - Momentum didn’t -

The blame got lost somewhere in translation. He doesn’t remember when. All he knows is that his heart beats with the same force that changed the world for the worse, that ended the world for so many innocent people, for so many people with potentials and futures and hopes and dreams.

It isn’t Zero Reverse that night, and Yusei drags himself out of bed. It’s a second disaster, a repeat, one that he definitely caused, or at the very least didn’t stop. It’s faceless men with shadow cards and claws who rip Stardust Dragon from his hand, his deck, his heart, his life, and as she leaves the colour drains the sky into hollow, burning blacks and greys, and his arm hisses the way it did before he was marked, and his skin froths and boils and bubbles until it’s bleached of gods and fate and he’s standing in the rubble of a city he couldn’t protect, and he is standing there alone.

(Those nightmares can be kind, sometimes. Two boys in reds and purples and golds help him to his feet and believe in him and promise him that their future - his future - is bright and good and he isn’t wrong to believe in and fight for it. It’s harder to wake up from the nightmares when they have moments like that, though, because among the trembling and the terror and the regret and the guilt, there’s a warmth in his hands and in his chest from people he’ll never know, he shouldn’t have known, people he misses but can’t have met, and as he scrambles for his deck, scrambles to hold Stardust and prove she’s there and he’s there, phantom arms wrap themselves around his waist, and a neck rests lightly on his shoulder. His face is tickled by soft breath, dancing with the exhilaration of riding a D-Wheel for the first time, and his ears ring when that excitement turns to fear, and, half-asleep and hurting like hell, Yusei clutches cards to his chest and thinks of fusion and pharaohs and the taste of clean air, unsalted by the tragedy of his birth.)

When it’s Zero Reverse, he drives. He feels the wind rush past him and his D-Wheel purrs smooth and steady against the road. Momentum vibrates against his hands like an old friend, and he reminds himself that he’s alive, that the city is alive, that the science he’s so scared of is an ally, it’s under control. He can’t ride when it’s ghosts and ghouls and paradoxes and men in masks hunting him down. Riding is what they want him to do, where they need him to be, where they can force him to Synchro Summon, where they can take everything from him. He wonders if it’s silly to be afraid, but he can’t change that he is.

He finds himself in the garage, and he tinkers. Oil bleeds into his veins, sinking into slipstreams of thoughts and memories until everything is numb and mechanical, until all that there is is this moment where steel molds itself under his fingertips and wires curl around his limbs and his eyes glaze over with concentration, and his tongue juts out of his mouth, just a little. He can taste static in the air, can taste the gritty, salty, Satellite air, can feel himself shrink back to before, to long nights in junkyards, to passing out in piles of scrap because he hasn’t let himself rest, because he’s had no one to tell him to rest, because he’s been so focused on making sure he’s working on something that he hasn’t worked on himself. It’s nice. There’s no guilt there. Machines don’t blame him, machines don’t pretend they don’t blame him, machines don’t insist he’s good despite everything, despite how much he’s hurt people, despite how much he’s taken from them.

Bruno never asks about the nightmares. He joins Yusei silently, working beside him, a gentle, grounding presence. Yusei doesn’t always notice him; in fact, more often than not, it’s not until Yusei wakes up, tucked in on the sofa that’s become Bruno’s bed, arms covered in soot and grease, that he even realises he’d woken Bruno up at all.

...

“I keep forgetting he doesn’t know,” Crow scratches at one of the markers lining his face. “It’s gonna be a problem, if things start getting bad again.”

“I don’t want him to know.” Yusei hopes his voice is firm, hopes that the stern quality he can never shake will make him sound certain, resolved, and not show how he’s buckling under the pressure of this conversation. For once, his words come out gently, naturally, with no pressure, no effort. He almost doesn’t realise he’s spoken them until he hears Aki’s response.

“But he might want to help,” she says, sadly. “He cares about you - cares about us.”

Crow nods. “He’s a friend. And we already proved you don’t need to be a Signer to make a difference in these fights. We should at least give him the choice. While he can still back out, I guess.”

Back out.

Yusei agrees that he’ll tell Bruno on his terms, but Crow’s statement lingers in his thoughts. Back out. Back out. He hadn’t considered that yet, he hadn’t thought that - Because Bruno can leave this destiny. He doesn’t have any reason to fight with the Crimson Dragon, doesn’t have any reason to stay. Yusei had thought he’d been protecting him from some inescapable fate, but Bruno isn’t connected to that fate, and he isn’t going to be when he finds out about it.

_It makes me wonder if there’s someone out there who’s missing me._

Is there someone Bruno misses, Yusei wonders. Is there some part of him that aches, not only with the knowledge that he’s alone, that he doesn’t know who he is, but that some part of him, some very important part of him, is gone? Is Bruno going to leave, when he tells him? Is Bruno going to believe him?

Is it wrong of him, then, to want Bruno regardless of who is waiting for him? Is it wrong of his heart to race when their hands or shoulders brush, wrong of him to brush his wiry hair out of his misty eyes, wrong of him to let his head loll against his broad shoulders, to lean into Bruno’s embrace?

Does Yusei care about the people who might be waiting for Bruno? Yusei isn’t very good at wanting - he isn’t a leader, he doesn’t know where he’s going, he isn’t sure if he’ll make it there - but now, he is stubborn and selfish and he has found one good thing, one safe thing, that he hasn’t hurt, that he won’t let get hurt. Someone who knows him and his work but doesn’t know about the disasters of that work, can’t blame him for his mistakes, doesn’t think of him as special for being his father’s son, for being the star who shot out of Satellite, for being the head of an ancient god slumbering deep beneath the earth and his skin.

Yusei hates feeling like his destiny has been decided for him. Whether he’s selfish or not, he resolves to let Bruno choose his own. He can stay with them, or he can - he can back out, if that’s what he needs. Yusei won’t force him one way or the other. He doesn’t want Bruno tied up in the Crimson Dragon’s claws, but if that’s what Bruno wants, then that’s what matters. That’s what matters.

...

Sometimes Kiryu is in the nightmares. Yusei is especially thankful that Bruno doesn’t ask about them then, because he has no idea how to explain that the last person who held him like this died because of him, that he came back from death kicking and screaming and twisted by promises from a god Yusei defeated, that he tried to kill Yusei, that Yusei held him as he died, again. Garbled apologies come from his mouth - he isn’t sure who he’s aiming them at, if the names spurting out between stutters and sobs are Bruno’s or Kiryu’s or his father’s, or a combination of all of them, or maybe he’s whispering Jack’s and Crow’s, maybe he’s begging their forgiveness, maybe he’s finally acknowledging what a burden he’s been on Martha all these years and hoping she won’t hold it against him, she won’t force herself to keep pretending she loves him.

Maybe it’s the Crimson Dragon he’s calling to. Maybe he wants to make sure she knows that, even though he can’t look at his arm without tasting bile, even though he resents the role she’s given him, he loves her. He needs her. He relies on her. He’s glad that she thinks he’s important, that she thinks he has the power to fix him, that she lends him the power to make sure that his hands, hands which are stained with rust and blood and and his father’s genes, can create, can save, instead of destroy.

Regardless, Bruno places hands on Yusei’s back, and lets him rest his forehead against his chest, lets him shake, lets him cover his shirt in snot and salt and spit, lets him recover. Bruno’s good at knowing when he can touch Yusei, and when it’s best just to sit with him, just to help him breathe.

It’s a cold evening of coding when he whispers, “I think I’d be like that too.”

Yusei furrows his brows. Bruno’s staring at the computer screen, and Yusei’s plugging cords into the side of Crow’s D-Wheeler, so neither can see the other. Bruno’s shoulders have dropped, though, Yusei sees, craning his neck, and his hands are tucked neatly at the side of the keyboard. An ethereal, electric glow outlines his silhouette.

“If I could remember,” Bruno says. “Sorry, if it’s bad of me to say - I know you don’t talk about them, about the - about your past or about the stuff that happens at night. I just...”

Bruno’s hands ball into fists. Yusei is dizzy. The wires drop from his grip.

“I just feel like, whatever happened to me before - I think, if I could remember it, it would haunt me too.”

Yusei’s fingers dig into the skin stained by his mark. Bruno doesn’t know about any of that. Bruno doesn’t know about gods and Signers and masses of shadow that pull themselves out of the ground only once it’s been wet with blood, and about blasts of pure energy that rip through cities and flesh and about the apocalypse that lurks in Yusei’s cells, about the destiny that he’s trudging through, about the future destroyed by dueling, about the deity born from time who let him pass into the past, about robots who won’t let him Synchro Summon, about cults and secret groups who have been watching him his whole life, shaping his whole life, steering him towards something he doesn’t know or understand.

No, Bruno doesn’t know about any of that. Bruno doesn’t know about anything but the way Yusei’s heart feels when their chests are pressed together, and the right way to hold a wrench, and the right way to hold Yusei, and particle physics, and the way Yusei’s lips taste and the way Yusei offers him smiles and side-eyes that he doesn’t share with anyone else, and the way his jacket hangs baggy from Yusei’s shoulders, and the way Yusei’s voice cracks as he promises he loves him.

Bruno’s skin is perfect - there are no blemishes, no scars, no marks, no tattoos, no freckles, nothing he can use to identify himself through, nothing that can tell him about his past, about who he is, about what he’s done. Yusei is littered in freckles, in scars, in cuts and bruises, and marks in bronze and gold sit naturally on his skin, like he was born with them. Bruno’s fascinated by them. He runs his fingers over shadows and remnants of turf wars and D-Wheel accidents, he presses his lips against the raised, puckered skin, healing from where dueling with Kiryu tore it apart, he brushes over the freckles that dust Yusei’s shoulders and he laughs and makes up his own stories for the battles that left blotchy, bloody footprints across Yusei’s skin. His stories are always softer than the truth, and Yusei wishes for a reality where Bruno’s chuckled tales of escapades and adventures could be true.

He never mentions the scars on Yusei’s chest, or the gleaming metal that runs down his cheek. Those speak for themselves, Yusei thinks, which makes them the easiest to talk about, when he finally does, when he finally talks about Satellite, about growing up with Jack and Crow, about chasing Jack across oceans and years, about prison (and he skims over prison, because Bruno’s grip tightens around his wrist, his palms sweaty and his lips trembling, afraid, upset, angry), about a path drawn out by people made from stars, about Signers and Dark Signers (and again, he has to skim, because Bruno’s gaze drops to that scar engraved into his stomach, and Kiryu’s name catches in his throat because for the first time Bruno is trying to voice his dislike of someone, trying to understand why Yusei speaks so softly and kindly but wears skin hollowed out because of the events he’s describing, because of this person whose name lingers fondly on his tongue), and then about Zero Reverse, about his father, about the future, about being terrified to Synchro Summon, about ghosts both real and in his nightmares. He leaves out the time travel - that seems like too much, too unbelievable - but he mentions Paradox, mentions losing Stardust, and Bruno’s eyes are hazy and unfocused, and his lips press together like there’s something he needs to say, something he’s about to remember.

There’s silence, but Yusei feels no space to be afraid.

“I’d have nightmares too,” Bruno whispers, and Yusei presses himself against him, holds him as close as he possibly can, and cries.

...

Kiryu sets a card and ends his turn. When he looks up, Yusei expects his eyes to be empty and black.

...

He remembers, and Yusei has never hated himself more. He chokes out, “Did you want me to leave you for dead?”

There are bags under Kiryu’s eyes so dark it looks like he’s been fighting. Yusei remembers the days when they did, the days when Team Satisfaction was strong and alive. Kiryu’s skin is pale, sickly so, his eyes are tired and bloodshot, but they’re there. They’re sad and exhausted but they’re Kiryu’s eyes, heavy-lidded, as he looks towards Yusei, lethargically, and says, “You already did, once before. Would it really have been so hard to do it again?”

Yusei opens his mouth, but the actions just make tears burn, hot and dusty, and his vision steamy and painful. He says nothing. Kiryu smirks, but the smile isn’t his - Yusei notes, with relief, that it’s not the smile of a god either.

“Don’t worry,” he shrugs, his tone listless. “I know it wasn’t your fault. I know you were just trying to protect things, in that stupid, stubborn, backwards way you do.”

Despite the yelling and the panting and the sound of axes hitting stone and metal and dirt, everything feels silent.

“I was never really worth protecting,” Kiryu states. Then he lifts his mattock and he slams it into the wall.

...

They can’t go back to the way things were before. Yusei has Bruno waiting for him at home, and Kiryu has a family, a town, a place to protect, a home he finally feels satisfied with. Yusei also has scars that throb, hot and fresh and agonisingly painful, when Kiryu touches him, and frequently shudders and jolts himself from visions of dark sockets and bloated, corpse-like skin, and Kiryu still hears whispers of something ancient and angry, something that wants to hurt, something that makes him hurt, and he can’t forget the way Satellite screamed as he set them ablaze for it, for him, for his revenge.

Regardless, Kiryu takes Yusei’s hand (gloved, always gloved now, and that’s another sign of how much things have changed, of how they can’t go back, but Yusei’s thankful for it, because he’s scared if Kiryu’s flesh touched his bare, he might feel it dead and cold and rotting) and squeezes it lightly, and Yusei presses a handful of soft kisses - barely more than his lips brushing Kiryu’s skin - to his neck, mingled in with murmured apologies and promises and memories and regrets, and Kiryu names a town after him - after _them_ \- and even if Yusei looks at him and sees a vessel controlled by a dark god hellbent on his destruction, even if Kiryu looks at Yusei and feels tinges of abandonment and betrayal and hates that he’s being left again and remembers how long he wanted to hurt him for, how long he wanted to end him for, even in spite of that, in spite of everything, that moment feels safe, feels special, feels something close to satisfaction.

...

Yusei’s knees can’t take it anymore, and he collapses. His D-Wheel is still running somewhere behind him, he can hear it humming. It’s made louder as the gear below him comes to a halt. The gear his father designed. The gear he’s named after. The gear that was meant to bring people together.

If that’s the case, then why is he alone again?

His reflection gleams back at him, tinted in red. Somewhere, under layers of ash and sweat and grime, a boy who might be nineteen is crying. His hands fall limply to his side. A boy who might be nineteen has fought so hard for so long, has done everything he can to look his destiny in the eyes, and now, he buckles under the weight of it, and he can’t move.

This is his fault. Hot, sticky, salty tears fall down his marker, fall down his nose, drip onto the harsh, metal ground. The Arc Cradle shudders in response, like Satellite can feel the anguish of its Shooting Star. Yusei’s brain is a mix of panicked goodbyes and long, tender embraces, of promises of eternity and of memories of everything ending. A crimson god, a being made from time, an inferno in herself, shrieks and caws and he feels her desperation, her insistence, her begging him to get up and keep going, because she has fought for an eternity and she will not lose here.

He thinks about the aftermath of this chaos. He thinks about Paradox, about Aporia, about the spiralling floor of fate he has been pushed onto and forced to dance across. He thinks about other lives and other gods and other Signers, he thinks about other battles, about other dragons, about other realities where he loses, where he wins but it doesn’t matter, where Zero Reverse didn’t happen, where Fudo Yusei didn’t happen.

He thinks about how hard he has fought, how much he has sacrificed for this destiny, and he watches himself sob, reflected in red once again.

Bruno shouldn’t know about any of that.

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PvWtsQCAiI


End file.
